When we were kids...

Anyone ever think back on how we rode in cars as kids and cringe? :eek: I saw a pic the other day of my siblings and me all double buckled in the back and I wasn't in a booster (I couldn't have been older than 4) Thankfully we know better now so we can make the car a safer place for our babies!
 
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Brianna

New member
I laid down on my dad's lap (unbuckled) while he was driving, rode in the bed of a pickup truck countless times, ride with a lap belt only- loose enough that I could stick my head in the front seat, laid on top of friends in the back seat of a too-crowded car on the way to concerts and started driving 3 years before I was old enough for a permit- and that's just what I can remember off the top of my head. I'm so lucky that the only "crashes" I've been in were only fender benders and I've never been injured!
 

jacqui276

New member
I frequently rode with just a lap belt (or the shoulder belt behind my back so that it wouldn't cut across my face), double buckled or on the floor if there weren't enough seats and was out of any sort of car seat by the time I was 3 or 4.

Thankfully I wasn't in my first accident until I was 12 (where I was adult sized and properly buckled in). I still sustained some pretty good injuries though.
 
I know right?! I remember sitting in siblings laps, switching seats while the car was in motion ect. I guess its not just in the car though, I wouldn't let my kids do half the things I did as a child. Maybe I'm just over-protective?
 

Baylor

New member
My mom always made us wear seatbelts. I remember my littlest brother having a car seat but I don't know what kind.

Well I just remembered we had a station wagon we were allowed to lay down in the back and sleep as we drove to and from Maryland.
 

aeormsby

New member
We did a lot of camping trips in our single cab truck when I was a kid. My parents, my sister & me, if we did buckle (in the lap belt) it was both of us together in the middle. When I was about 5 (1980) my parents bought a cargo type van (full size). They had to add a window and seats for a 2nd row. No idea where they got the seats, they were captain chair type with lap belts (that unbuckled like airplane belts). When my my brother came along my dad bolted a seatbelt to the front seat seatbelts for the front seat and used that to install brothers seat. I think it was maybe the Love infant seat on the floor when he was a baby and then built a platform & bolted & belted the (used/borrowed) seat to that when he was older. (it was something like this: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/457748749597274751/)

Our safety improved dramatically when we got one of the first minivans when I was 13 or so. Even if it only had lapbelts and no headrests.

We did always wear seatbelts though.
 

sarahknavy

New member
My dad had a big cargo van for work. He would clear it out and put a mattress in the back for our long road trips. No seats to even pretend to sit in :)
 

thekatie

New member
I had a car seat exactly as whatever the law required. I know that, because that's the kind of parents I have. Not sure what the law was then though...

I also remember I started riding in the front seat really, really, really early because I would open the door in the backseat - while my mom was driving. They switched me up front so I couldn't do that any more.

I also remember when a friend of my mom's would come clean our house for extra money, she would take me out to lunch. If her son came with her, he sat in the front and I laid on the flat back area of her Corvette. That would have been in the '90s, when I was older, not even "wayyyyy back in the day."
 
This was also in the 90's I think that's why I was so surprised when remembering how we rode around. It's no wonder why so many grandparents think we are totally out of control with the car seats we put our kids in, their generation seems to have been pretty laid back about it all!
 

Mysweethoneybee

New member
I'm old, but I remember riding in the back of my dads pick up truck from Joplin to St. Louis except at some point it started raining so we ended up having 5 people in the cab of a pick up truck that only had 2 seat belts. We didn't start wearing seat belts until it was the law sometime in the 1980's.
 

MomToEliEm

Moderator
In our 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, I remember riding frequently in the little storage area behind the second seat. Also, on our long trips, we often rode on blankets and pillows on the floor in our Volkswagen Vanagon. Glad we didn't have any accidents while growing up.
 

sm1982

New member
My best friend's parents had a big van with a bench that folded into a bed. When we would go camping, us kids would sleep on the van-bed so her parents could go out garage sale-ing without having to wake us up. Even when it was folded into a bench, we never wore seat-belts (most of our trips in the van were on the highway). Her father kept all his old tools between the middle row and the back row where we sat. I remember once he stopped short, I went flying onto the pile of tools and cutting myself.. but not bad enough they ever made us buckle up or took the tools out of the van. I remember spotting her father drinking a can of beer while driving and being scared my parents would find out because I knew they wouldn't allow me to go places with them anymore. (Ironically, her father also had a PSA-type seatbelt cover reminding everyone to buckle up.)

My parents were a little better, we weren't allowed to ride in the back of the station wagon or truck and had to buckle up. Sometimes they'd squeeze four across in the back if it was just a quick ride. Nothing else they did was really considered misuse at that time.

As a teenager, I rode four-across in the back of a sedan from upstate NY to NJ and back. That was pretty uncomfortable.
 

msg221

Well-known member
Yes, it does make me cringe. I remember being in the back seat of our station wagon, sometimes just lying down on the back seat. I rode in the back of our pickup truck, on the streets of Phoenix. My parents bought a camper that fit on the back of the pickup truck so we could go camping and my brothers and I would ride in the back of that, mostly lying down back there to sleep on road trips!
 

biddyk8

New member
I'm the youngest in a family with 5 kids, all 7 of us rode everywhere in a 5 seater car, occasionally in a 4 seater mini. Being the youngest I generally sat either in the footwell or on someones lap, even 2 of us side by side in the front seat.

We also would fight over who got to sit in the trunk of my Aunts volvo estate or the back of vans :rolleyes: Oh to be young again.

I'm only 28, I don't remember any of us having car seats, although I'm sure we probably had some thing as a bare min until we were 3ish.
 

An Aurora

Senior Community Member
The only time I remember being in a seat at all was in my mom's VW Bug and it caught on fire and I remember her freaking out trying to get me out (the engine caught fire, and the engine is directly under the back seat where I was riding).

After that, we had lots of pickups and my parents would fold up the back seat and put pillows and blankets down and my sister and I would lie back there and sleep or play on road trips.
 

lgenne

New member
We often rode 4 across in the back seat. My mom was very strict about buckling up, but 2 in the same belt was totally fine. Lap belts only, of course.

We had a station wagon with rear facing seats in a 3rd row. No head rests, of course. I don't even want to think about the neck injuries that would have happened in a head on collision.

In high school, when there were 7 people living in the house (6 of us adult sized) my parents bought a conversion van. The captains chairs were probably pretty safe, if my memory is at all accurate, but the 3rd row had a bench that could fold down into a queen size bed. No headrests, of course. It even had shoulder belts, probably outboard only. Worst seat belts EVER. The stalk came directly out of the bight, and were designed to pull out through the back so they wouldn't be in the way in bed mode. So to keep them from falling out accidentally, the floppy stalks were REALLY long. Lap belt landed right across your belly as a result.

I think the center seat must have been a lap belt only.
 

xursusmaritimusx

New member
my parents were really good about having car seats for my sister and i (born in 81 and 83). we had strolee car seats. we both came home from the hospital in car seats. i remember riding in mine up until about the age of 3 and i use to actually help buckle my sister in hers and let her out!

after that i remember we had a really hard booster seat that was some kind of beige textured plastic with a brown vinyl cover. it also came with a harness you attached to a top tether you'd install in you car. the kit was never used but it was kept inside the booster seat itself. if you flipped it over it had a little compartment.

anyway after that though we had nothing. my dad had an old pickup that we use to ride in the back of. sometimes with or without a canopy shell on.

when my dad met my step mom she drove a 4 door sedan and we'd squeeze 8 people into a 5 seat belt car. thankfully a short time later they invested in a suburban so we could all spread out ;)

glad we all survived and thankfully were never involved in a car accident!!!
 

Brigala

CPST Instructor
My mom was very safety conscious. And she has always been paranoid about car accidents.

For that reason, I was always required to wear my seat belt. Even when laying down in the back seat, I had to somehow manage to keep that lap belt around my waist.

Unless we were having a birthday party or something and had 6 or 7 kids in the wagon. Then the excess kids got to ride in the "trunk."

Or unless we were picking my dad up after his swingshift downtown. It was midnight so my mom would lay the back seats down and my sis and I would be ushered out to the car in our jammies with our pillows so we could sleep for the ride. Five nights a week.

Yup. I am so thankful I didn't get into my first car accident until I was an adult. I didn't know much, but I *did* know that you always wear your seat belt. And I had a gut feeling that I shouldn't lean over my baby to nurse him in the car like I'd been advised to do; that gut feeling is probably why my oldest son and I are both alive today and not even paralyzed.
 

alake

New member
For a long time, my dad had a single cab truck. I think he got his first extended cab in 1994 or 1995.
We all (mom, dad, brother, me and the dog, and if we were going long enough, just because we were not crowded enough, we would add a car sick cat to the mix) would ride to the cabin in the cab of the truck. Hour and a half drive not so great roads. Drew and I would share the middle lap belt, Romeo (dog) would sit at our feet and Reebok (cat) would sit on whoever she felt like getting sick on that trip.
I had a car seat, and I used it until I was at least three if not four.
I'm a farm kid. I started driving at the age of 10, with an adult in the car. I started driving our rather large ATV with out adult supervision around Summer's age, 8.
I road in the back of many trucks.
My uncle had an open cab tractor and I can remember sitting on the edge while he was driving and watching the wheels, which weren't far from me turning.
Nothing to do with parents, but more or less, because I was 13:p
We hooked up the red wagon behind said ATV and pulled kids around in it as if it was a chuck wagon. We did at least put helmets on everyone, not just the people in the wagon.
There was also a 10 day Disneyland trip. We flew to California and my grandparents picked us up in their camper van. I believe I either sat on a bucket or a porta potty that whole entire trip. The only accessible seat belts were in the front seat. Neither my mom, dad, brother or I wore a seat belt for 10 days. I was 10 at the time of this trip
 

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